Iranian activist dies at father's funeral

The daughter of a veteran Iranian dissident has died during clashes between mourners and security forces at her father's funeral in the capital, Tehran.

Haleh Sahabi, 54, died on Wednesday from a heart attack a day after the death of her 81-year-old father, Ezzatollah Sahabi, right, according to Iranian opposition websites. He died from brain haemorrhage.

Haleh Sahabi was also a pro-democracy activist and women's rights campaigner. She was being held at Tehran's Evin prison, but had been given temporary leave to attend the funeral.

According to Iranian news agencies, officials arrested at least five people at the ceremony for Ezatollah Sahabi, who was jailed both before and after the 1979 Islamic revolution and spent a total of 15 years in prison.

He led the Nationalist-Religious Coalition of Iran, an alliance of politicians whose activities came under scrutiny in recent years especially after the disputed presidential election in 2009 which gave Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a second term in the office.

News of Haleh Sahabi's death triggered outrage among opposition activists who have been experienced severe repression since their leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi were placed under house arrest in mid-February. Iran's Irna state news agency said she was already had "high blood pressure and blood sugar" before the "cardiac arrest" at the funeral.

But Ahmad Montazeri, the son of Iran's most prominent dissident cleric, Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, told an opposition website Jaras he had witnessed her death. "One of the security agents tried to take the photo of her father that she was holding at her hands," he said. "When the photo was being taken away from her, she fell on the ground as a result of an attack on her side and also the scuffle with that agent."

The semi-official Fars news agency confirmed Sahabi's death but denied there had been a clash with police and accused the opposition movement of seeking to politicise the incident.

Source: guardian.co.uk